Animal Crossing Devlog

For my devlog I chose to read "Animal Crossing: Self Representation In Animal Crossing: New Horizons" by Joe Todd on the First Person Scholar.  First Person Scholar claims to be a publication that wants to reinforce the idea of critical play, something I think that was highly reflected in the article I read. When I went to go search up more information about Joe Todd, I wasn't really met with anything on the website. However, from my point of view he is most definitely a qualified guy. He also cited a bunch of sources in his article that made some of the concepts he was talking about more understandable. 

In Todd's article, he discusses the variety of different character customization features that ACNH has. ACNH has more customization features than any Animal Crossing game ever before, and they're only expanding even more. With abilities to download clothing that other creators all over the world have made, on top of different apparel that you can buy at Able Sisters, there's well over 5,000 options for a player to choose from. Todd mentions that a lot of players use their avatars to represent an offline version of themselves, and I think that he hit the nail on the head. 

When I play Animal Crossing, my avatar is a mini me that is kind of apart from me at the same time, like another version of me. However, I don't think it reaches as far as he said to where avatar's are what a person is afraid of becoming. 

In my paper prototype, I chose to do villager hunting. "What does that have to do with any of this?" you might ask. Well I think it has a lot to do with a sense of self and how you choose to represent yourself offline. Something that stuck with me when I was explaining my game to a couple of classmates before class was when I was going through my list of villagers. I showed another classmate a lot of the current villagers I had on my island, and I came across one villager in specific who is debatably my favorite. Her name is Bella, and she's a little punk mouse, with a peppy personality. She's bright and bubbly, and dreams of being a popstar, much like all other peppy villagers. But, the big thing about Bella is that there's such a big difference between her appearance and her personality. When I showed her and smiled, one of my classmates said "Oh Bella, I totally see why you love her and why she's on your island. It makes a lot of sense that she would be." This is not to say that I'm a punk peppy mouse, but I think it says a lot about how villagers reflect on your personality.

When hunting for villagers, when you come across a personality type you don't like (for me, it's a smug or snooty villager) and you usually skip them unless they're really cute. Who you choose to have your island says a lot about you as a person and a player, almost as much as what you wear or your hair color or even what nose you choose.